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Would you pay $20 for this?
Weiss
Posts: 9,935 ✭✭✭✭✭
The service, not the bar.
Would you pay $20 for the security, the authenticity, the protection the slab offers?
Because I kind of think I would. Maybe not for every bar. But for a pristine, 35+/- year old bar? 
We are like children who look at print and see a serpent in the last letter but one, and a sword in the last.
--Severian the Lame
--Severian the Lame
2
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Not for silver bars. It's just a money maker to me, jmo
I'm digging it
Lol, doubt it. Would like some better holders for my bars, but grading a bar? What's the point?
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Yes and no.
I can see the appeal and small marketing niche. But I prefer my bulk metal raw
Ounce by ounce the stack grows .
I pay for a label only when the added value of the label is greater than the added cost for the label. In this case Yes.
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Debt
Yes
Would you pay $20 for this?
LOL, THAT'S A BIG NO. I'd pay about $200 for the raw bar though. THKS!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
No. I get that some collect vintage bars, and it may be worth it to them but not to me.
Young Numismatist/collector
75 Positive BST transactions buying and selling with 45 members and counting!
instagram.com/klnumismatics
MS69.
UM?
Lol...
No it's not.
Marketing gimmick.
Now some pedigree from AllEngelhard OR a COA carries some weight.
Maybe for some scarce art bars in pristine condition. I could see a high grade commanding a higher premium.
Click on this link to see my ebay listings.
Eh, no not for bars, but I can see the appeal to others.
Yes, for some bars - collector value, authenticity. Cheers, RickO
What if the slab also contained an assay, with precise weight in grams or troy ounces, and purity to the 4th or 5th decimal?
--Severian the Lame
Interesting. Where are you finding these? I assume PCGS is now slabbing bullion and this isn't just photoshop fun.
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I could see this slab for a gold or silver bar recovered from a famous shipwreck (Atocha, SS Central America, SS Republic, etc) but not for the typical silver bar. Most silver stackers want to be able to hold their silver bars in their greedy little hands.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
It's just photoshop.
I visited the vault recently and found the vinyl pouches on a few of my vintage 10 ounce bars are starting to show signs of age: Cracking, vinyl seams coming unwelded. I seem to recall wiping them down with armor all wipes maybe 10 years ago, I guess I should do that again.
Anyway, got me thinking. These pouches weren't meant to last, and they've done their job--protecting the bars within--for 40 years now, give or take. So what would be the ideal replacement? An off the shelf generic plastic snap-together case (which you can buy for a few bucks), or something worthy of a vintage bar?
We don't think twice about a $50 coin in a slab. So why not a nice bar? A nice 10 ounce bar is worth $300 to $400. A really good 10 ounce bar can be worth a few times that. So is slabbing bullion worth $20? Maybe. For the consistency, the authentication, the AllEngelhard attribution (shown here as the "7th series" and in the top post as "2nd series") and the physical protection the slab offers to soft .999+ pure silver.
But what would give a bullion slab added value? Really make it an asset? How about an assay, even if it's just an XRF, and a precise weight?
--Severian the Lame
nope
Yes, but not for silver. Gold and Platinum I would pay the twenty bucks!
A shop I do business with bought an ounce sealed platinum bar when they were real busy at a show. Trusted their seller.
Fake
How could you ever validate a "mint" grade?
Nobody with much sense would sell you that bar for $200. Recent eBay sales in the past week have been $280 to $360.
He calls it gutter to whomever will listen then offers much less. Next he'll offer oats or ??? Great gig if you can get someone to bite.
I sold out of my blister pack holdings of gold many years ago for the same reason: Fake bars in fake blister packs.
But if anything, that's seems to be a reason more in favor than against. It's easy enough to check if a PCGS slab is real. Their photo service would add another layer of protection. Especially since modern blister pack bars--real or fake--are pristine and identical. Compared to vintage bars, which all have battle scars to some degree.
FWIW: This is an actual bullion bar in an actual PCGS slab:
--Severian the Lame
He calls it gutter to whomever will listen then offers much less.
That's what coin dealers used to do before coin grading services. If I owned the coin, it was VG but when the dealer owned it, it was Premium Superb XF.
I knew it would happen.
That would be cool for the scarcer bars...
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Or maybe just perhaps the eBay "Buyers" are the ones with no CeNTS?
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
Soon you will be Praying you had "oats" instead of "gutter" metal. Don't say you weren't warned. GD LCK!!
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
And guess what.......44 years later your coin dealer game is still the same.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
ya only with plastic!
slabs are needed for a solid 1% of coins superfluous for many others and disgraceful for bullion
So sell all of your silver on eBay then.
Nice thread,... I especially like your edit job.
So if I had a collection of Engelhard or Johnson Matthey 10oz Bullion Bars, and I was looking for a way to Conserve and protect them I would most likely pay the $200 to have my ten different varieties slabbed. Hopefully the box holds 10 jumbo slabs and I can keep them all in the same place.
Not sure if you knew, but they DID slab some WTC gold 10oz bars in PCGS plastic so the precedence has been set…
Also this is kind of on topic
Those looking for a smaller ingot in Plastic would be keen to pick up the Japanese “Samurai Money” Shu & Bu , they also have gold versions and are relatively affordable
I will say if PCGS wants to slab 100oz ingots they may have to develop some stronger plastic - a fall from any height on a 6lb+ bullion bar would probably smash the case to smithereens
It's all about what the people want...
I was not aware that they'd slabbed 10 oz bars, @LukeMarshall . Though to be fair, a 10 oz gold bar is considerably smaller than a 10 oz silver bar.
I think they could just do a ribbon, kind of a GSA pack band for a bar larger than 10 ounce.
I actually wrote CU's customer service dept and linked to this thread. They responded that they'll send it up the chain.
I have to think that they've already got it on the back burner. Maybe it's time to consider. Vintage bullion is becoming hotter.
--Severian the Lame
Ya that would be a time well spent "lucrative" deal.....NOT. Fee-bay is the worst place on the planet to dump gutter. Just as many suckers on CL and there's ZERO fees. Wake up please, I can't keep teaching you everything.
The whole worlds off its rocker, buy Gold™.
No. It takes too long for numismatics. I don't need to wait in line for guys sitting at a bar.
Absolutely
I use a pelican style case for my bars so their air tight along with a recharagable silica canister. This way their in a moistureless enviornment most of the time. I don't think its practical to have lets say a 25oz or 100oz bar in a plastic slab do you? Imagine how thick or bulky that would have to be to hold something of that size without breaking. Kind of impractical. I get the point though of having something authentic and not everyone has means to test the authencity.
Successful transactions with: AnonMan, Commoncents05, JJM, PerryHall, Danielp, greenwr, Along, Herb_T, Downtown1974, masscrew, coinnerd, liefgold, JWP, Relaxn, Pnies20, Weiss, Type2, dm679864, pointfivezero, and more!
>
--Severian the Lame
armor ruins everything it touches what are you doin with that stuff?